Developing grade five students' English-speaking ability through online homework platform in Mainland China

Abstract

'Doing Homework Together' is a popular online homework platform in mainland China and has been adopted by many schools as part of English homework. However, there are few studies and even fewer quantitative empirical studies on whether and how 'Doing Homework Together' can improve students' English speaking ability. To use 'Doing Homework Together' more effectively and to improve students' English speaking ability at critical times, this paper uses a mixed quantitative (quasi-experimental design) and qualitative research approach. A random sample of four English teachers and a class of 43 fifth-grade students from a public elementary school in mainland China were selected as participants. Students were divided into two groups for the intervention. To collect reliable and valid data, we designed and implemented a speaking proficiency testing framework using customized teacher and student interview forms. Descriptive analysis and Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to analyze the quantitative data. It was found that 'Do Homework Together' can help students improve their English speaking ability to some extent, but there are some problems with the way the platform is currently used.